Broken Harbour

“That’s right. Go on about Emma.”

“Emma. She loved stuff around the house: putting on her little apron, making Rice Krispie buns. She had a little chalkboard; she’d line up her dolls in front of it and play teacher, teach them their letters. Tried to teach her brother, too, only he wouldn’t stay still long enough; knocked over the dolls and legged it. Peaceful, she was. Happy-natured.”

Was again. “And her brother? What’s he like?”

“Loud. Always laughing, shouting-not even words, just shouting to make noise, because that was so funny it creased him up. He-”

“His name.”

“Jack. He’d knock over Emma’s dolls, like I said, but then he’d come help her pick them back up, kiss them better. Give them sips of his juice. Once Emma was home sick, a cold or something: he brought her stuff all day long, his toys, his blanket. Sweet kids, both of them. Good kids. Great.”

Richie’s feet shifted, under the table: he was working hard to let that go by. I tapped my pen off my teeth and examined my notes. “Let me tell you something interesting that I’ve noticed, Conor. You keep saying ‘used to.’ They used to play family games, Pat used to bring Jenny presents… Did something change?”

Conor stared at his reflection in the one-way glass like he was measuring a stranger, volatile and dangerous. He said, “He lost his job. Pat.”

“How do you know?”

“He was there during the day.”

And so had Conor been, which didn’t exactly point to him being a productive little worker bee. “No more cowboys and Indians after that? No more cuddles in the garden?”

That cold gray flash again. “Being out of work wrecks people’s heads. Not just him. Plenty of people.”

The quick leap to the defense: I couldn’t tell whether that was on Pat’s behalf or his own. I nodded thoughtfully. “Is that how you’d describe him? Head-wrecked?”

“Maybe.” That sediment of wariness was starting to build up again, stiffening his back.

“What gave you that impression? Give us a few examples.”

A one-shouldered jerk that could have been a shrug. “Don’t remember.” The finality in his voice said he wasn’t planning to.

I leaned back in my chair and took leisurely fake notes, giving him time to settle. The air was heating up, pressing around us dense and scratchy as wool. Richie blew out air loudly and fanned himself with his top, but Conor didn’t seem to notice. The coat was staying on.

I said, “That’s going back a few months, Pat losing his job. When did you start spending time out at Ocean View?”

A second’s silence. “A while back.”

“A year? Two?”

“Maybe a year. Maybe less. I didn’t keep track.”

“And how often do you get up there?”

A longer silence, this time. The wariness was starting to crystallize. “Depends.”

“On what?”

Shrug.

“I’m not looking for a stamped time sheet here, Conor. Just give us a ballpark. Every day? Once a week? Once a month?”

“Couple of times a week, maybe. Less, probably.”

Which meant every other day, at least. “What time? Day or night?”

“Nights, mostly. Sometimes daytime.”

“What about night before last? Did you head up to your little holiday home?”

Conor leaned back in his seat, folded his arms and focused on the ceiling. “I don’t remember.”

End of conversation. “OK,” I said, nodding. “You don’t want to talk about that just yet, fine with us. We can talk about something else instead. Let’s talk about you. What do you do, when you’re not kipping in abandoned houses? Got a job?”

Nothing. “Ah, for God’s sake, man,” Richie said, rolling his eyes. “Like pulling teeth. What d’you think we’re gonna do? Arrest you for being in IT?”

“Not IT. Web design.”

And a web designer would have known more than enough about computers to wipe the Spains’. “See, Conor? How hard was that? Web design’s nothing to be ashamed of. There’s good money in it.”

A humorless sniff of a laugh, up at the ceiling. “You think?”

“Recession,” Richie said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Conor. “Am I right? You were doing grand, all up and coming and web-designing away, and then the crash came and bang, just like that, on the dole.”

That hard almost-laugh again. “I wish. I’m self-employed. No dole for me; when the work went, the money went.”

“Shit,” Richie said suddenly, eyes widening. “Are you homeless, man? Because we can give you a hand there. I’ll make a few calls-”

“I’m not bloody homeless. I’m grand.”

“No reason to be embarrassed. These days there’s loads of people-”

“Not me.”

Richie looked skeptical. “Yeah? D’you live in a house or a flat?”

“Flat.”

“Where?”

“Killester.” Northside: just right for a regular commute up to Ocean View.

“Sharing with who? Girlfriend? Flatmates?”

“No one. Just me. All right?”

Richie turned up his hands. “Only trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I’ve got a question, Conor,” I said, twirling my pen between my fingers and watching it with interest. “Your flat got running water?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m a cop. I’m nosy. Running water?”

“Yeah. Hot and cold.”

“Electricity?”

Conor said, “For fuck’s sake,” to the ceiling.

“Mind your language, son. Got electricity?”

“Yeah. Electricity. Heating. A cooker. Even a microwave. What are you, my mum?”

“Couldn’t be further from it, fella. Because my question is, if you’ve got a nice cozy bachelor pad with all mod cons and even a microwave, why the hell are you spending your nights pissing out the window of a freezing rattrap in Brianstown?”

There was a silence. I said, “I’m going to need an answer, Conor.”

His chin set hard. “Because. I like it.”

Richie stood up, stretched and started moving around the edges of the room, in the loose-kneed, bobbing lope that says Trouble on any backstreet. I said, “That’s not going to do the job, fella. Because-and stop me if this isn’t news to you-two nights ago, when you don’t remember what you were doing, someone got into the Spains’ house and murdered the lot of them.”

He didn’t bother to pretend that came as a shock. His mouth tightened like a vicious cramp had wrenched through him, but nothing else moved.

I said, “So, naturally, we’re interested in anyone who has links to the Spains-especially anyone whose link is what you might call out of the ordinary, and I’d say your playhouse qualifies there. You could even say we’re very interested. Am I right, Detective Curran?”

“Fascinated,” Richie said, from behind Conor’s shoulder. “Is that the word I’m after, yeah?” He was making Conor edgy. The bad-news walk wasn’t intimidating him, nothing like that, but it was breaking his concentration, keeping him from slamming his silence shut around himself. I realized that I was liking working with Richie, more